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Primavera Contractor 5.0

4 replies [Last post]
Sun, 2007-09-09 19:47
Ernesto Puyana
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Joined: 12 Jan 2001
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I’ve been scheduling and monitoring progress on several construction projects using Suretrak. I´m feeling it’s time to migrate to more recent primavera products and looked at Contractor 5.0
Can anybody tell me how suretrak ans contractor compare? I’m worried that literature on Contractor says it works up to 200’ activities (de luxe). Is that so? I’ve been working 3,500 and 5,500 activity schedules on suretrak!

I’ll appreciate any comments.
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Replies

Fri, 2007-09-14 10:02
#1
Paul Harris
User offline. Last seen 1 year 27 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 11 Apr 2001
Posts: 618
Groups: Content Moderators, GPCCAR Editors
Primavera Contractor allows a number of new features not available in SureTrak such as Multiple Currencies, Cost Accounts, Expenses, Multiple Baselines, Claim Digger, Activity Steps.

Primavera Contractor also has one factor for calculation summary durations. So if you have some activities on a 12 hour day calendar and some on an 8 hour day then the summary duration in days for one calendar will be incorrect calendar (as in SureTrak and MSP). I hoped that this problem would be solved with new software as it is in other products like Asta Powerproject.

There are hierarchical Activity Codes but no Activity ID Codes.

You may only have one project open at a time

You are unable to paste data from the software, but you may copy and paste into other products like Excel.

The product is fairly click happy which makes it difficult to be productive It takes six clicks to apply another layout, whereas P3 and SureTrak (if you have customized the toolbar) it takes 2 clicks to apply a layout, to be precise one and a double click. There is also no customizable toolbar in Contractor.

Constraints are interesting. You have to lift up the horizontal window split until half the activities are covered in the upper window to expose the lower area of the bottom window where one applies constraints, some users will find this inconvenient. Constraints are not listed in the Reference Manual index and there are only four short paragraphs on page 146 on constraints which do not explain what each type does or how they calculate.

You cannot save to a file, all the projects are in a database on your C drive, some people and companies will find this inconvenient.

There are no Roles which are found in the Enterprise version.

The manual also does not explain the minimum operating system requirements.

Paul E Harris
Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia
Planning and Scheduling Training Manual & Book Publishers & Consulting
www.eh.com.au
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Fri, 2007-09-14 08:13
#2
Ernesto Puyana
User offline. Last seen 8 years 5 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 12 Jan 2001
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Not having used Contractor, I can already start a list of defects:

1- Number of activities limited to 750 and 2,000 according to version and price.
2- No resource leveling.
3- No project groups.

If anybody has anything else to contribute to this list maybe will have enough arguments to consider it a lemon; advanteges are also welcome - maybe we change our mind, or try to make the Primavera marketing people consider the needs of their loyal clientele when desingning their strategies, instead of just squeezing them (us).

Ernesto Puyana
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Fri, 2007-09-14 08:01
#3
Ernesto Puyana
User offline. Last seen 8 years 5 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 12 Jan 2001
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Tomas

Thanks for your advice. That ads up to the list of reasons not to move from suretrak.

My trouble with P6 is the price. Can’t afford a US$5,000 product to do the same I do with a $500 one.

Thanks again

Ernesto
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Thu, 2007-09-13 22:24
#4
Tomas Rivera
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Joined: 2 May 2001
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Ernesto:

Beware of Contractor: it does not have a resource leveling capability.
I was recomending Contractor to one of my clients when I realized it does not do resource leveling. That changed the whole decision.
They were also using Suretrack and decided to stay that way.
By the way, I use Primavera 5.0 and I just received P6 and waiting for a chance to install it.

Tomas Rivera
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